Mimnermus : —Son of Ligyrtiades, of Colophon or Smyrna or Astypalaea, writer of Elegy. He flourished in the 37th Olympiad （632-629 B.C.）, and thus precedes the Seven Sages, though according to some authorities he was contemporary with them. He was also called Ligyastades, because he was sweet-and-clear （ λιγύς ）,that is musical. He wrote ... books ...mss corrupt: perh. two Books mostly love-poemsSuidas LexiconFamous Colophonians are Mimnermus the fluteplayer and writer of Elegy, and Xenophanes ... Pindar also mentions Polymnastus ... and according to some writers we must add Homer.Strabo Geography [Colophon]Photius Library （see Callinus p. 44）.

And Mimnermus, who after much suffering found such sweet sound and breath in the soft pentameter, he loved Nanno, and oftentime bound about with the mouthpiece of the gray lotuswoodi.e. mouth-band of the flute made revel with Examyes, and vexed the lives of the ever-grievous Hermobius and the hostile Pherecles because he hated the verse he put forth.perh. they put forthHermesianax

That parodists were in some repute in Sicily is thus shown by the tragic poet Alexander of Aetolia in an Elegy : ‘... This man came of ancient lineage, for he had known from his youth up how to behave to strangers as friend to friend,i.e. to play host to another's guest and had both reached the summit of the verse of Mimnermusi.e. practised to the full the counsel indicated by the famous line on love, Mimn. i. 1 and become an equal drinker with the lad's-love-crazy Teian.’Anacreon

Alexander of Aetolia [from Polemon]

But now [ignorant] backbitersHunt; lit. Telchines （ see index ） who are no friends of the Muse murmur [unseemly] against me because I have not wrought [in honour] either of kings or of [ancient] heroes a single unbroken poem in many thousands of lines, but make one little scroll of verse [as a child might do], though the tens of my years are not few. To the backbiters I say this: ‘You ignorant tribe, whose only skill lies in shrivelling your own hearts, I know well, look you, that I am one of few lines; yet the bountiful Corn-Goddess far surpasseslit. outweighs, i.e. corn is much better than acorns though they grow on a tall tree （Hunt） the tall oak; and of the two Books of Mimnermuscf. Porphyrio below it is his short ‘pieces’ that have told us how sweet he is, not the great tall one.i.e. the Book which contains a number of short poems, not the Nanno, a poem which seems to have filled a whole Book; γυνή is for ἡ περὶ τῆς γυναικὸς βίβλος （see H. J. M. Milne C.R. 1929, 214）; ‘pieces’ will do either for poems or for
women ; for another mention of M. by Callimachus cf. Ox. Pap. 1011, 341 （Crusius）

Callimachus Causes: ‘The short pieces have told us, the great one has not told us’; he means ‘that Mimnermus is sweet’; ὧδε is to be taken thus: ‘sweet in the little ones.’i.e. recapitulates the words ‘that M. is sweet’ （Milne）Scholast on the passagePour thou two ladles as of Nanno and Lyda, one as of the lover's friend Mimnermus, and one as of the discreet Antimachus; with the fifth mix in of myself, and let the sixth, Heliodorus, stand for each and all that ever loved; the seventh call Hesiod's, and the eight Homer's, the ninth the Muses', and the tenth Memory's. I shall have an overflowing cup to drink, Cypris; the rest of love pleases me but little, drunk or sober.Poseidippus

There is another ancient Flute-Nome called Cradias or Fig-Branch , which according to Hipponax was played by Mimnermus. It seems that originally singers to the flute sang Elegiac verse set to music; this is shown by the Panathenaic.

Plutarch Music, Account of the Competition in Music.We are told by Chamaeleon in his book On Stesichorus that not only the poems of Homer but of Hesiod and Archilochus, and even of Mimnermus and Phocylides, were sung to music.Athenaeus Doctors at DinnerIf, as Mimnermus believes, there is no joy without love and jests, then you should live in love and jests.Horace EpistlesI go home a second Alcaeus, on the other's vote; and who is he on mine? Of course, a Callimachus. If he seems to want more, he swells with a name of his own choice and becomes a Mimnermus.Horace EpistlesMimnermus wrote two brilliant Books.reading doubtful; perh. Books of songs to the flutePorphyrio on the passageAlas ! what avails you now to sing high song and cry woe for the walls Amphion's lyre did build? In love Mimnermus' lines count for more than Homer's; love is no savage, love doth seek gentle songs. Go to, lay by your gloomy books, and sing what every maiden would like to know.Propertius ElegiesSee also Ath. 13. 597a.